IL-2 Shturmovik Guards Units of World War 2
by Oleg Rastrenin, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, England, 2008, $22.95.
World War II’s most-produced warplane, with 36,152 built, the Ilyushin Il-2 was also the first successful armored attack plane and, like the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka, made the sobriquet of Shturmovik (ground attack plane) its own. The regiments that flew it into combat played a significant role in reversing the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and spearheading the drive to Berlin. The most distinguished of those units were renumbered and given the honorific status of “guards regiment.”
It is a sign of the times that this latest entry in Osprey’s Combat Aircraft series was written by a Russian aviation historian, Oleg Rastrenin, with color profiles by Russian artist Andrey Yurgenson. This gives readers an unprecedented inside look, through the latest research and photos, at the organization, doctrine and tactics of the Shturmoviki during the “Great Patriotic War,” as well as the planes’ most successful and heroic aircrews. The appendix also features a detailed series of plan views that sort out the progressive changes the Il-2 underwent in the course of the war and the variations in aircraft from the many different factories that Josef Stalin ordered to produce the vitally needed plane.
Originally published in the September 2009 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
